Quocíente for six berimbaus
The Northern Illinois University “Bau House” (berimbau ensemble) directed by Greg Beyer, recently premiered a new work of mine entitled, Quocíente in April of 2012. I am very excited with the work they put into this performance and pleased with the result. Watch the video from youtube below.
Some notes about this work:
Quocíente is constructed of linear polyrhythms resolving to their representative intervals. For example, an interval of a perfect 5th is a rhythmic relationship of three to two. In Quocíente, this may be heard by two berimbauistas performing a rhythm of 3:2 that lands on a perfect 5th – as the rhythm cycles back around. The piece layers this idea throughout and uses much more complicated rhythmic and intervallic relationships, which equals fun.
Want to learn more about the berimbau and new music being created for this instrument? Go to Arcomusical and check out this ongoing project of Beyer’s.